About Mbari: The custom known as mbari is exceedingly local, practiced by only a cluster of Owerri Igbo villages in southeastern Nigeria, and is deeply embedded in their cultural belief system. The creation of a mbari house and clay figures is not typical of Igbo art in general, which is best known in the West for its wooden carvings of masks, stools, and figures. Furthermore, due to the impermanence of mbari art, which falls prey to the elements and is allowed to disintegrate once its religious function has been fulfilled, it is of little interest to collectors of African art or to museums. For these reasons, mbari is an art form relatively unknown outside of Nigeria. 

The term mbari means many things—a beautiful, carefully-executed work of art, a process of spiritual renewal, an offering to the gods, and a social occasion that unites the village in feasting and celebration. It is part of the religious and ceremonial life of a village. 

A community decides to build a mbari house full of sculpted earthen figures for a specific reason. During a time of hardship or crisis—for example, when the group is threatened by war, drought, famine, disease, or some other natural disaster—villagers believe their difficulties are a sign that the gods feel neglected and are offended. The community seeks to appease and influence the gods by making an offering; they build a special house dedicated to the principal female deity in the Igbo pantheon. By this means, they hope to turn the tide, restore balance, and avert further evil. Mbari is a supplication for peace and prosperity. The assumption is that the gods control the well-being of the village, and it is within their power to help or harm people. 

Mbari may also be built as payment, to thank the gods when a petition has been answered, or as a prayer for the bestowal of further benefits. In this case, mbari is a gift from the people, a “thing of pride” created at great expense in terms of finances, time, and labor. Upon completion of mbari, the gods have been paid and, in return, must compensate the villagers with healthier and more numerous children, better crops, an increase in personal wealth and individual status, and other such favors. 
 

Geoffrey Nwogu in the Obeama Mbari house 
he built with his father in 1971.

Having made the communal decision to construct a mbari complex, the first stage is to select the site, usually near a pre-existing sacred area used for rituals and smaller shrines. To enclose the proposed house, a high fence is erected; the wooden framework is covered with palm-leaf mats to screen the building activity and provide secrecy for the workers during construction. Villagers will not see the mbari house until it is finished and they congregate for the opening ceremony. 

The village priest employs his powers of divination to choose the men and women who will work under the direction of the mbari artist responsible for the overall planning and design of the structure. A mbari artist—who is architect, sculptor, painter, and building supervisor combined—serves an apprenticeship of six-to-ten years to learn his craft. Money is collected from the community to pay the artist’s fee. 

Throughout the construction phase, which may last up to two years, the artist and his workers remain sequestered inside the compound, having no contact with their families and other villagers, except for brief forays at night to collect the mud clay needed in their work. They must undergo an initiation ritual, stepping over iron bars placed on the path to the enclosure, which they enter walking backwards. From that time, their status has changed and they are no longer part of the real world. For three weeks, they prepare themselves emotionally for the task ahead, with rituals, prayers, and chicken sacrifices. At the end of this period, a goat is sacrificed and a village celebration launches the beginning of mbari. 

Every stage of construction is accompanied by blessings and animal sacrifices. The ceremony called “tying the house” consecrates the first vertical wooden supports sunk in the ground and the first lintels lashed to them. Thick walls of mud clay take shape over the timber framework, and a roof of palm-leaf mats is added. Nowadays, some artists use imported tin sheeting. Finally the entire red-brown clay surface is polished to a smooth texture. 

The next ceremony—“dancing mbari”—heralds the decoration of the walls with ceramic plates. Villagers collect European plates and saucers in great numbers to be inserted into the walls. Each plate is lodged into a five-inch-deep hole dug in the clay surface. In contrast to the dull brown mud, the plates gleam and shine out from the wall; they are “the eye sockets” of mbari. It can take two to three months to complete this activity. Later, the walls are whitewashed as a base coat for richly-painted geometric designs. Celestial motifs and rainbows adorn the upper halves of walls. The finished mbari house is a kaleidoscope of color, in contrast to the drab homes of the village. 

The ground plan of a mbari house is about ten times larger than a regular domestic dwelling. It is open on all four sides, basically a box-shape with four corner pillars supporting a steep roof with overhangs. Inside are four niches facing out in four directions; these form the backdrop for the tableaux of clay figures. Consequently, mbari can be viewed in the round; however, one niche will dominate and face the front, reserved for the main village deity, the “owner of the house” to whom the offering is dedicated. 

The mbari structure is an empty stage set awaiting actors to enliven it. It needs figures to give it meaning. The tableaux might include deities, ancestor spirits, animals from myth and legend, and humorous genre scenes parodying daily life. In its heyday, mbari art featured up to a hundred clay figures; by the 1960s, twenty-five figures was the norm. 

The iconography is formulaic in that certain characters must be present in mbari, and rules dictate the placement of the figures within the house. The main group in the central niche consists of a female deity accompanied by her entourage, including her children. Local gods (agbara) are associated with nature; the two chief agbara are Ala, the earth goddess, and Amadioha, the god of thunder and the sky. (Geoffrey’s three mud figures will be Ala, Amadioha, and their baby—the harvest deity Ahianjoku. Click HERE to see the artist's sketch of the proposed project.) 

Ala is always a seated figure, but positioned higher than all other figures. She is surrounded by her family and subordinate gods. These figures in the dominant niche are sculpted in rigid, formal poses, all front-facing and symmetrically arranged, to give an aura of dignity and grandeur. As “owner of the house,” the goddess Ala sits proud and aloof, and she is always portrayed with an elongated torso and long thick neck—features considered by the Owerri Igbo to represent the ideal of feminine beauty. 

Other niches contain figures of lesser gods and ancestor spirits. These may include the divination deity Agwu, the yam goddess Ajiokuji, the water and snake goddess Mamy Wata, and the god of medicine and magic, Ogwu. 

Sacred animals drawn from creation myths, folk tales, didactic fables and proverbs are also featured in niches. However, they stay in the wings and tend to merge with the architecture. Leopards lurk in dark corners, snakes coil up in crevices, elephants stand guard at windows, birds perch in the rafters, and monkeys hang acrobatically from the ceiling or climb posts. 

Within the traditional corpus of sculptural types, artists can improvise and invent new forms. In fact, an important part of the mbari tradition is the artist’s mandate to update—to be innovative and imaginative, to add a few surprises, to experiment with variations on earlier themes and prototypes, and to express his personal vision through his work. Mbari always incorporates change and new ideas into its cultural repertoire. Thus mbari expresses its own time and place and makes it relevant to each successive generation. Today mbari art has assimilated many elements of modern life in Nigeria: the sculpted figures sport European clothing; they talk on the telephone, carry umbrellas, wear wristwatches, and listen to radios. A completed mbari house is a document of social change. 

To create the figures, mbari workers must first “harvest the yams”—a metaphor for digging and collecting the mud clay. This is a symbolic activity requiring ritual preparation through prayers, songs, and sacrifices. In the dead of night, workers leave the compound in procession, to the accompaniment of loud gong music, and go in search of anthills, where a special clay can be found. Villagers believe that anthills are spirit houses—the resting places for human souls awaiting reincarnation. Anthill clay, therefore, is consecrated and will be used only for modeling the figures; common mud clay will be used for plastering the walls of the house. 

Collecting clay is a laborious task; anthills produce very hard clay that is difficult to extract. Great quantities are needed, and workers must make repeated trips, toting the chunks of clay in baskets. The hard clay is soaked and pounded until it is the sticky consistency of cooked yams. For each figure, an armature is fashioned from sticks of wood tied with cords and then sunk into a pedestal. These are the bones of the figure, the skeleton on which the flesh—the clay or “yams”—will take shape. Using small wooden spatulas or bone tools, the artist applies mud to build up the form. Soon the house begins to fill up with figures. Finally, when all subordinate figures have been completed, it is time to model the “owner of the house.” The goddess Ala must be entirely created in a single day. 

All figures are painted. Using ground earth pigments (sometimes western oil paints) and brushes made from feathers or coconut ruff, the artist brings the figures to life with facial features and colorful clothing in bold geometric patterns. 

The construction of the mbari complex takes place behind a high fence, screened from the curiosity of the villagers. The day of its unveiling is, therefore, a long-anticipated and exciting occasion when the community views the work of art for the first time. The two-day celebration begins in the evening, when the fence is smashed down and the sequestered workers emerge, to the sound of gongs calling the villagers to the site. By the light of the moon, huge bonfires are lit nearby and everyone forms a procession, chanting and dancing around the mbari house. The next morning, a cow bedecked with feathers leads another procession to the busy marketplace to announce the mbari opening amid rousing cheers, the blowing of horns, and the firing of guns. People from nearby villages flock to admire the new mbari, to laugh at the amusing vignettes, to inspect it and criticize the artwork. There is a mood of elation and festivity; it is an occasion for feasting, dancing, visiting—a time of joy. The spectacle celebrates the goddess’ acceptance of her offering, her “thing of pride.” 

The completed mbari stands as a monument to the community’s ability to mobilize in the face of disaster, to unite for the common good. Its creation has been an economic burden: all families have contributed, providing building materials, plates, food for the workers, and the artist’s fee. But they have played a part in re-enacting a cyclical ritual of renewal, one that will be re-interpreted anew by future generations of Owerri Igbo when the community is at risk. It may be fifteen to thirty years before a new mbari is necessary. 

Once the mbari is publicly opened, its fundamental function has been accomplished and it is no longer charged with spiritual power. The sacrifice has been presented to the gods; mbari has served its purpose. The house and the figures are now left to the elements, to gradually erode and disintegrate. 

In its impermanence, mbari reflects the Owerri Igbo belief that individuals have it within their power to improve their lot in life. According to a popular Igbo proverb, “No condition is permanent, neither poverty nor wealth.” 

Reference: Herbert Cole. Mbari: Art and Life Among the Owerri Igbo. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.